Ash & Erie Is Changing the Fashion Industry With Stylish Clothes for Short Men

Eric Huang and Steven Mazur's pants and sleeves were too long. And without many options beyond a tailor, they were really, really frustrated.

Huang and Mazur are among an estimated total of 40 million American men under 5'9". That's a large portion of the population unable to find pants or shirts that fit them correctly, with most t-shirts, shorts, pants, and button-up dress shirts being way too long, oversized, or just plain ill-fitting.

Despite the numbers, Huang and Mazur spent years saying, "Maybe it’s just us, maybe we just have a weird body type," Mazur told MensHealth.com over the phone.

After hearing about the experiences of so many other shorter guys, Huang and Mazur were convinced it wasn't just them.

"Everybody was saying they could never find anything that fits well," Mazur said. "Big and tall guys have options, petite and large women have options."

"This is the missing group that hasn’t had clothes that fit well," Mazur said.

The Solution

In 2015, Ash & Erie was born in the hope of giving them options. The two men founded a clothing brand that provides men with items like dress shirts and pants, tailored specifically to fit shorter body types.

The collars are actually scaled properly, the sleeves are narrower, the body length is shorter, and sleeves are shorter, t0o. There aren't any way-too-long sleeves or oversized pants in sight.

That accuracy and innovation is due to research, which included "hundreds of fittings with shorter guys of different sizes."

Ash & Erie

The initial launch was a small collection of five casual button-down shirts and though the line has since extended to include items of many kinds, that original "Everyday Shirt" design remains a best-seller.

Their creations were met with praise.

"We've been blown away by the feedback since launching," Mazur said. "There are so many stories of waiting for this for decades. Guys say, 'It’s so amazing to put something on that feels like it’s made for me.'"

Mazur and Huang dreamt of taking the brand to new heights, so they headed to Shark Tank, the hit show about pitching business ideas to high-profile investors, in 2017. In tow, they brought a business plan, an expanded line, and even bigger dreams.

Two of the sharks, Mark Cuban and Kevin O'Leary, made offers, while two others called the men "smart" and "really clever" for their innovations.

And one shark, millionaire FUBU founder Daymond John, even admitted that he, too, had experienced similar problems while shopping for clothes.

"I always felt like I was shorter than the average guy," John said.

Before John admitted anything, though, Mazur noticed the stigma of shortness poking through the shark's steely demeanor.

"At first, he was denying being short," Mazur said. "Everyone was teasing him. He was pretending to be taller than he was."

It's indicative of a larger problem, one that falls even beyond the confines of the fashion industry.

"Any shorter guy can tell you that it’s something you do notice and there are a lot of certain stigmas and judgments," Mazur said. "We want to make sure guys know it’s not you that has the problem. Your height is perfect... Your height is exactly as it should be."

Your height is perfect... Your height is exactly as it should be.

One of Mazur and Huang's greatest tools in demonstrating that is using models who aren't exactly the stereotypical model types, which tends to mean tall or lanky. Instead, they cast models of diverse body types from their homebase of Detroit, Michigan.

"Our models are real guys from Detroit, not [professional] models," Mazur said. "You see people that look like yourself."

The Future

Moving forward, Mazur is hoping to see the line grow even more.

"We want to get to the point of offering an entire wardrobe of clothes," Mazur said. "There are things we can design better with a shorter guy in mind."

He's also open to "finding ways for shorter men to try on clothes. People do love to touch and feel clothes beforehand." This could include "our own stores" or "partnering with other retailers," either option "making it easier for guys to give it a try."

On a broader scale, Mazur "would love to see industry develop as a whole. We'd love to be the brand leading the way."

And it starts with options, which Mazur, Huang, and the Ash & Erie team are hoping to come up with more and more of as time goes on.

"As a shorter man, I’d love to have just as many options as your average taller guy does."

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